Frances Bingham reviews Dad, You’ve Got Dementia
Kristen and Don Phillips (2018)
Photo credit: Anna Macfarlane
Frances Bingham’s review of Dad, You’ve Got Dementia
Dad, You’ve Got Dementia is a brilliant title, both poignant and comic — which turns out to be perfectly appropriate for the book.
Through a series of beautifully-written cumulative episodes the reader simultaneously learns about Kristen Phillips’ experiences and gets to know her father, Don, and gradually find out about his life.
The restraint of the writing is extremely well-judged, avoiding either sentimentality or over-emphasis on the distressing aspects of illness which, in order to try and make the reader understand the tragedy of the situation, writers sometimes focus on too much. But its lyricism retains all the more the pathos, beautifully balanced by humour.
The form subtly reflects the passing of time in short passages, each freighted with experiences which connect to past and future, which enables them to be concentratedly intense without overwhelming the reader.
Kristen Phillips has created a sensitive portrait of Don throughout his life, not just at the end of it; a moving and sympathetic memorial both to her father and to her relationship with him, foregrounded in the importance of memory.
Frances Bingham is a novelist, playwright, biographer and poet. She lives in London with her partner, Liz Mathews, a potter and lettering artist.
